


Of Spirits That Tempt Us

by Oak_Leaf



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Dark Jack, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Shadow!Jack, Spoilers for Episode 100, Theory Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oak_Leaf/pseuds/Oak_Leaf
Summary: Shades, Emily thinks. She recalls the pages in Death By Damnation detailing what happens to some of those who are taken by the shadows. At the time, she had only thought of it in the context of Debbie.--------Immediately following episode 100, the team regroups and Emily contemplates the situation they face.
Relationships: Ben Arnold/Emily Potter, Emily Potter & Lily Wright, Emily Potter & Sammy Stevens, Team The One
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	Of Spirits That Tempt Us

It's not a long drive from Big Pines back to King Falls, but it feels like hours before they even leave the outskirts behind, and Emily is a little more comfortable about the distance between them and...the voice that found them at the borrowed radio station. Her hands don't relax around the steering wheel, but she let's up on constantly checking the road behind her in the side mirrors. She takes a breath. "We're going to the safe spot?" she asks, steadily.

"There's nowhere else _to_ go," Ben replies from the passenger seat. "The house is...not safe. The cabin is at least across town from Perdition Wood, and until we know what's happening--"

"We go to the cabin," Lily cuts in, steely. "We need to regroup with Katie and Troy, and whoever else we still have left, and then, we head to Perdition Wood. The gate is open, so there's nothing stopping us from getting in there and finding Jack. We can figure everything else out after that."

Sammy makes a faint noise. 

"You have any better plans, Stevens? Because I would desperately, dearly love to hear any ideas on how to fix this."

"Lily...you heard what he said..."

"That wasn't Jack God damn Wright!" She smacks her hand on the seat in front of her, and in the rear view mirror, Emily can see her glaring at the car around her, daring anyone to argue. This is Lily Wright coping; she's moved on from fear and confusion to anger.

"It was his voice." Sammy sounds hoarse. "How was it his voice?"

Ben speaks up. "I remember there was something about that. In the book. I have it somewhere--" the overhead light clicks on as he digs through his bag, pulling out ine overstuffed notebook, then another. He pages through the second one, and hums in success. "Here! Shades."

Shades, Emily thinks. She recalls the pages in _Death By Damnation_ detailing what happens to some of those who are taken by the shadows. At the time, she had only thought of it in the context of Debbie.

"If a person succumbs to the dark while lost in the Void," Ben is summarizing, "the Shadowmaker can--well, possess them, more or less. They're them, but in the way a shadow is the person it's prohected from. I mean, he's the _Shadow_ maker. He's the one in control."

When Emily had first read these passages, Emily had thought of shadowpuppets. The library had done a storytime with them last summer. She had dimmed the lights and drawn the curtains, and sat cross-legged in the juvenile section with a flashlight pointed at a sheet hung down one of the shelves. The children called out animals and objects, while she made the shapes dance across the sheet with her hands. So the Shadowmaker made his shades move, and talk.

The current situation was a much more terrifying version, but still.

"So, what?" Lily asks. "We just dunk him in holy water? Have that crackpot pastor bless the entire lake if that means that--that *thing* away from Jack."

"It's not--I don't think it works like that? I don't know. If the book said how to deal with the shades, I don't have that in the notebook."

"Emily, did you grab any of your copies?"

She had photocopied not all of the pages, but several of the ones that seemed key. Ben had thought it was too dangerous, but she had insisted that having some kind of back-ups was only safe.

"They're all back at the house."

Lily swears.

They pull up the twisting drive to cabin by Lake Hatchenow they have been using as a safe house recently. Sammy has begun shaking again, and Ben has to tug on his arm to lead him up the dirt walk to the cabin door. Lily isn't shaking. Lily is as pale and rigid as she was when they left Big Pines FM. She closes the car door quietly, kicks a nearby stump, then stands there, glaring up at the sky. Emily puts a hand on her arm.

"It'll be alright."

"That wasn't my brother," she ssys, still looking daggers at the stars, daring the universe to argue with her. 

"You would know."

"Of course I'd know." She starts after the boys. Emily follows a few steps behind.

Inside, door locked firm behind them, she finds Ben on the phone. There may not be cell reception up here by the lake, but there is a landline. As much good as that seems to be doing them at the moment, judging by the frustrated expression on Ben's face, and tge frantuc way he dials and redials numbers. Sammy is sat on the couch and Lily joins him, nudging not ungently to make room for her, and picks up the notebook Ben has set on the end table.

"I think we need coffee," Emily tells them. They don't respond. 

There's a canister on the kitchen countertop and a pot in the cupboard above it, and Emily goes through the motions of msking coffee. Filling water, measuring grounds, lighting the stove. While it brews, she pulls the car keys out of her pocket to fiddle with, and leans back against the counter.

Shades, Emily thinks, rubbing her thumb over the teeth of one key. That's what Jack was--not _Jack_ , Lily and Sammy's Jack, who played rugby and smiled in photos like he was laughing and delighted in mysteries and thought love could solve anything--but a shadow mimicking him while the Shadowmaker That is what spoke to them. That's what Debbie was. (Emily isn't sure if that's enough of an excuse that she'll stop hating her.) It's what Sammy would have been if he had opened the Devil's Doorstep, or what Emily might have become if Debbie's plan had succeeded. Or any of them, if the shadows catch hold of them.

And Emily remembers the light pouring from _Death By Damnation_ when they left it behind, the glow bright and so, so beautiful even through the windows of Ben's house. She thinks about shades. Debbie, so intent on Emily's ability as the Unwritten One to switch places with her so that she might return to the land of the light. Was that Debbie, or merely the Shadowmaker flapping her mouth? Emily thinks about the Doorstep, and the gate now open and spilling darkness, and is there even any difference between the land of the living and the Void anymore? She thinks thinks about the family she has made, the love for them, the hurt that wears itself deep into Sammy and Lily's faces and hearts. About the man she has only seen in photos and videos. From somewhere comes the image of him covered in pulsing, growing shadows, eyes black, with hands outstretched. She thinks about vowing to save him. 

She thinks about the nature of being an empty slot in the universe that isn't supposed to exist. 

The keys jingle quietly in her hands.

"Em?"

Her head jerks, and there's Benny, looking at her with concern. 

"I think the coffee's done," he tells her, reaching around to move the pot off the stove and set it in the sink. That's when she becomes aware of the stink of burnt coffee. She mutters a curse. 

Ben fits himself at her side, taking one of her hands in his. She tucks the car keys back in her pocket and puts that arm around him. He sighs. 

She squeezes his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He laughs, a choked off, tired thing that doesn't sound anything like Ben Arnold laughter. "That's what I was going to ask you."

"Well, I asked first."

"I got ahold of my mom. She's locking herself inside. Troy finally answered, and I caught him up on...everything. So he and Katie are making rounds to tell everyone to stay indoors, then they're heading up here." Ben pauses. "Tim is at the hospital. There's no sign of Herschel." 

"And how's Benjamin Arnold?"

"I don't know, I'm--it wasn't supposed to happen like thus. Not this soon, not with..." He trails off, shakes his head, then bumps her hip. "Your turn."

"I don't know what to do," Emily admits, although maybe she does. "And if Jack--"

"Not Jack," Ben interjects, like it's a fundamental truth. "No one Sammy loves would have said those things." 

(It isn't quite as simple as that. You can love someone and not know the nasty things that lurk inside, waiting to mske themselves known. And loving a person doesn't prevent them from hurting you.) 

"It wasn't him," she agrees. (She doesn't know Jack Wright well enough, or at all, to decide whether he would or would not have said the things they heard this evening. But she's studied the book and what the Void is capable of doing, and at this point, this is the most likely explanation.) "He knew too much to be Jack. How would Jack have known I was the Unwritten One? He quoted something Sammy said while he was gone. But...if the Shadowmaker is controlling Jack..."

"It's going to be difficult." Ben's hand tightens on hers. "But we've cone so far, and 

"If you could shoot down a UFO, you can find a way to exorcise shadow demons. Ben Arnold always has plans. Let's make a fresh pot while we wait for Katie and Troy, and we'll figure things out, together."

Ben smiles. "I'm not the only one with good plans."

Emily smiles back. Vows, and empty slots, and second-chances, and love. "No, you're not."

**Author's Note:**

> That!!! Was!!! Not!!! Jack!!!
> 
> I just wanted to play with some ideas I had after ep. 100. Anyone else getting strong vibes while listening that Emily will at least try to sacrifice herself for Jack? Because, hooo boy.
> 
> My first fic for the fandom, so comments are appreciated! :D


End file.
